Bangladesh: 4 die in new terror attack

Islamist militants carrying bombs and machetes launched a deadly attack on Bangladesh’s biggest Id gathering, killing four persons, including two policemen and a Hindu woman, nearly a week after 22 people were slaughtered in the country’s worst terror attack.

Bombs exploded near an Id prayer gathering in Sholakia, in northern Kishoreganj district, where at least 200,000 people had gathered, the police said. They said one constable was killed and at least 13 others were injured when hand bombs were hurled at police manning a checkpoint just outside the main prayer ground. However, national police spokesman A.K.M. Shahidur Rahman told AFP that “nine policemen” were injured and were in critical condition at a military hospital in Dhaka. A second policeman succumbed to his wounds on his way to hospital in neighbouring Mymen-singh. Jharna Rani Bhoumik, a housewife, was killed by a stray bullet that penetrated her hut, officials said.

Officials initially said two attackers were killed and three arrested, but there was confusion later about whether one of the three reported dead might have survived and be in hospital. Weapons recovered from the scene of the attack, close to where a quarter million people had congregated for Id prayers, included a pistol and machete. The prayer gathering in Kishoreganj is by far the biggest such congregation in Bangladesh.

Local reports said six to seven people led the attack with sharp weapons on policemen when they were frisking people entering the Idgah ground. Kishoreganj ASP Obaidul Hasan said the blasts spread panic among thousands who were beginning to gather near the ground, but the prayers were not disrupted, bdnews24.Com reported.

“That was probably a crude bomb. The facts are still unclear,” he said. The police did not reveal the identities of the arrested attackers. No group had claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack till the time of going to press.

The incident comes last week’s deadly attack on a cafe in Dhaka in which 22 people, including a 19-year-old Indian girl, were brutally slaughtered by the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists. The ISIS had on Wednesday issued a new chilling video warning the Bangladesh government of more attacks in the country and across the world until Shariah law was established globally, saying last week’s gruesome attack here was just “a glimpse”.

The video message, believed to have been issued from Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in strife-torn Syria, was released on YouTube. The video has gone viral on social media among Bangladeshis still recovering from the shock of the brutal slaughter of 20 hostages and two police officers in Dhaka.

The police said a massive manhunt was underway to nab other militants involved in Thursday’s attack.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at an Id reception at her residence, said, “Those who are carrying out assaults even in Id congregations are enemies of Islam and humanity.”

The cleric who led the Kishoreganj prayer, Maulana Farid Uddin Masud, has been an outspoken critic of a recent wave of attacks by Islamist extremists and he again strongly condemned Thursday’s killings. “The young men who think they will go to heaven (by carrying out such attacks) are wrong. They will go straight to hell,” Maulana Masud told AFP by phone. “Their (militants’) aim is to create panic among the people to weaken the natural social resistance. But I call upon the people not to panic, which will only benefit the militants’ goal, and instead wage social resistance against the extremists,” he said.

Many of those who attended services in Dhaka could be seen weeping as clerics led prayers for a more peaceful and prosperous Bangladesh. The biggest service in the capital was at the National Idgah Maidan where more than 50,000 people, including Bangladesh’s President Abdul Hamid, took part in prayers under a giant canopy.

The police brought in scanners and sniffer dogs to check for bombs as crowds were forced to wait for up to an hour before being cleared to enter the grounds where the service was held. No one was allowed to bring in bags.

Bangladesh has been reeling from dozens of attacks since the turn of the year, mainly targeting secular activists or religious minorities. Many of them have been claimed by the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group or an offshoot of the Al Qaeda network.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has consistently denied international jihadist networks have any presence in Bangladesh, but has been criticised for failing to tackle a rise in Islamist extremism. Critics have said Sheikh Hasina’s administration is in denial about the nature of the threat posed by extremists and accuse her of trying to exploit the attacks to demonise her domestic political opponents. On Thursday, Bangladesh’s information minister, Hasanul Haq Inu, portrayed the latest attack as being designed to topple Sheikh Hasina. “We don’t know which group they belong to but they are suspected members of (an) extremist terrorist group. They are against the normal religious practices of the country,” he said.